With its sprawling 5-inch, easy-to-read display, the Nav One 5000 from Cobra is a sight for sore, road-weary eyes. Although it boasts the same-size screen as its predecessor, the Nav One 4500, the 5000 offers better routing options and more robust trip-planning abilities. This feature-filled GPS can also help you sidestep tickets with its built-in database of traffic-light and speed-camera locations. Not without shortcomings, this navigation system is big and heavy, and its hands-free Bluetooth/cell-phone feature could be improved. Still, if you're in the market for an easy-to-use GPS that you'll have no problem seeing, the big Nav One 5000 is worth a look.

The first thing that will strike you when you see the Nav One 5000 is its huge screen. What's most important about the display, however, is its 4:3 format, as opposed to the 16:9 format found on widescreen models. Those of you who remember your algebra know that calculating the dimensions for a 5-inch screen with a 4:3 format yields a total screen area of 12 square inches. A 4.3-inch screen with a WQVGA resolution measures 3.9 by 2.3 inches, resulting in a surface area of 8.7 square inches. Thus, a 5-inch display in a 4:3 format has almost 50 percent more screen area than a 4.3-inch screen. This translates into a map that can show 20 percent more of the road ahead and text rendered in large fonts that are easy to read from a distance. In addition, with a bigger screen, the Nav One 5000's on-screen keyboard, configurable in either an alphabetic or QWERTY layout, has larger, easier-to-hit keys.

Though the Nav One 5000 has a built-in rechargeable lithium-ion battery, it definitely falls outside of the shirt-pocket GPS category. It measures a large 5.3 by 4.3 by 1.3 inches and weighs a hefty 9.5 ounces without its mounting bracket. The 5000 slides into a groove on the suction-cup-equipped bracket. Because of the size and weight of the 5000, I had to mount it fairly low on my car's windshield where it could rest on the dashboard and not obstruct my view. The arm on the bracket is fairly short as well, so it took a little extra effort to get the suction cup attached. And although it was easy to slide the device out of its bracket, I found it tricky to remount. In addition, you have to connect all of your cables directly to the Nav One 5000 since there are no pass-through connections on the bracket. The bottom of the device has connections for an external speaker, microphone, power, external GPS antenna, a USB port, and the optional RDS traffic receiver.

Unlike the 4500, the 5000 has no buttons adjacent to the screen. Two hardware buttons, one for power and one for the main menu, are on the top of the device. The menu system has a comfortable feel, and you can choose either the map view or the main menu as your opening screen. New users will appreciate the voice help, enabled by default, which walks you through the steps you need to create or customize a route. It also provides brief descriptions for each menu screen.

The main menu contains icons for Location, Address Book, Interest Points, and Go Home. Smaller icons either return you to the map view or open the Settings configuration menu.

The Locations icon lets you select a place from your history list or create a new destination using either an address, intersection, or a city center. The Address Book icon takes you to a menu of your favorite locations. You can also create your own folders to categorize your favorites. Interest Points gives you access to over seven million points of interest (POIs) in nine top-level categories; it also includes over 600 retail brands. With it you can quickly find the nearest Starbucks, Best Buy, or Lowe's, and other stores.

Even better is the built-in database of static-traffic-light and speed-camera locations. Within it, a Camera Alert settings page (see slide show) lets you choose Icon only, Full Alert, or No alert for each camera type. In addition, you can set both a freeway distance and a local road warning distance. By default, the freeway distance is 0.5 miles and the local road warning distance is 600 feet.

Also unique to the 5000 is the routing options screen. Although it lacks vehicle profiles, such as bicycle, pedestrian, and auto, the route screen presents you with two route options. For each route, a slider bar lets you choose between less time and less distance and to either avoid freeways or toll roads. A "Compare routes" icon calculates both trips and displays them on the map view. Unfortunately, you can't preview the maneuver lists before deciding which one to accept.

Designed to work in your car under extreme conditions, the Nav One 5000 has the widest operating temperature range (-4° F to 158° F) of any brand of GPS on the market. Because of this you don't have to remove the device from your car when it gets extremely cold or hot outside. Still, with these products being a favorite of thieves, you'd be wise to remove it nonetheless when you leave your vehicle.

The Nav One 5000 has all of the features you'd expect in a GPS in this price category. Though it's limited to three languages (English, French, and Spanish), the device does support text-to-speech. You have your choice of four map views: 2D north/track up and 3D north/track up. The Map view has zoom-in and -out icons (15 levels of zoom plus auto zoom) and an icon for trip data. The Trip Data screen displays six pieces of information, but you can choose which data fields to view from a list of 16. Frankly, this is the most robust trip computer I've ever seen. The map view also reserves an area at the top of the screen for user-selected data.

I road-tested the Nav One 5000 on local roads and on a 650-mile road trip. In both environments, it performed well. And though it's based on Tele Atlas maps, it still allowed me to navigate home on "restricted" roads within in my gated community. Other Tele Atlasbased devices have terminated navigation at my security gate.

There was one disappointment: The Bluetooth phone interface needs improvement. Audio received from the 5000 sounded distant and muffled. In addition, though it automatically reconnected when my Bluetooth phone came back into range, it couldn't read or transfer my cell phone's contact list.

Overall, the Nav One 5000 is a highly capable GPS device. The question is, do you want to sacrifice compactness and portability for a big, easy-to-see 4:3-format, 5-inch screen? If you don't mind the heft, it's definitely worth checking out. And, with an increasing number of states employing traffic cameras, the built-in database alone makes it worth considering.

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